Reagan: Situation in Mideast allows conservatives time to crow

Jarred Opatz Published: July 21, 2006 12:00 AM

We were right all along, and that gives us the right to say we told you so.Nobody wanted to listen when former Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and a lot of American conservatives warned that you cannot negotiate with terrorists such as Arafat, Hezbollah and Hamas, or their sponsors in Syria and Iran. We were accused of being warmongers and told the future of Israel lay not in defending itself, but in making concession after concession to an enemy sworn to demolish the Jewish state and drive its people into the sea.Goaded by the peace-at-any-price crowd who never can recognize evil when it stares them in the face because they dont recognize evil exists, Israel attempted to mollify the anti-Israel United Nations and the hand-wringing liberals here and abroad by playing nice with their sworn enemies.Israel withdrew from Gaza, driving their own people who had settled there with Israels approval and encouragement out of their homes and land. In return for this magnanimous gesture, the terrorists showered missiles on Israeli territory almost daily.Undaunted by this display of the real and vicious nature of the enemy, Israels government pushed on with plans to evacuate the West Bank, and hand it over to what purports to be a Palestinian state aborning.The response: more missiles raining down on innocent Israeli citizens and more threats to destroy Israel.When it finally dawned on the Israeli government that appeasement does not work when the enemy refuses to be appeased with anything less than total victory and the total destruction of the state of Israel, one would have thought the international liberal appeasement movement would have applauded Israel for going all-out to defend its people.Its obvious this was not to be the appeasers merely stepped up their rhetoric, demanding the international community intervene and force Israel to sit down and negotiate with Hezbollah and Hamas and heaven knows who else. There now is a great hue and cry demanding diplomacy and negotiations all aimed at preventing Israel from finally putting an end to the terrorism they have for so long endured. Nobody echoes Douglas MacArthurs warning that there is no substitute for victory.Youd think the appeasers would learn from what happened when MacArthur was prevented from achieving victory in the Korean War. The reality of a crazed North Korea would not exist as a nuclear-armed communist dictatorship had MacArthur been listened to.The international community, which is content to let the United States and Britain shoulder the burden of fighting the war on Islamic terrorism, stands on the sidelines. Instead of cheering us on, it condemns us for defending them against the terrorism that threatens them as much as it does us.They whine about the need to accommodate the displaced Palestinians by allowing them to have a state of their own, side-by-side with Israel, but ignore the fact the Palestinians could have their state for the asking, but are prevented from doing so by Hamas and Hezbollah and their sponsors in Iran and Syria who will accept nothing less than the destruction of Israel.It really irks me to hear the networks give time to the likes of Madeline Albright, Clintons Secretary of State and one of those demanding diplomacy as the only means of dealing with the Mideast crisis. In return for their efforts to broker peace between Israel and the PLO, all we got was continued tension and unrest in the Middle East. Newt Gingrich is right. We are in the midst of World War III and you dont win wars by courting the enemy, you win them by doing what Israel is doing fighting back with everything theyve got. We were right all along, and we have a right to crow.n Mike Reagan, the eldest son of the late President Ronald Reagan, is heard on more than 200 talk radio stations nationally as part of the Radio America Network.